BBCSH 'The Comfort of Family'
by tigersilver
Summary: In this one, Sherlock takes John home to the Sodding Fambly, once more, post the second Christmas hols since he's been returned. It is more successful a visit than even the previous time. That's a bit super, yes? (edited and updated version)


**Part Four: 'The Comfort of Family'**

**Author:** tigersilver

**Pairing:** S/J

**Word Count:** 3,600 for this fic and a clean 1,000 a day till we're done, as posted, as approved by the inner Tiger. I do like writing serials, really. I have no Beta for this. Blame _me_ for everything, okay? Oh, good!

**Summary/Warnings:** This is a _post-_Mary Fix It fic. Specifically, Mary (and John's child) have died, expired and passed on, all Off-stage Right! Sherlock has come to the rescue of his friend and carried him back off to Baker Street. As such, the story will lead to romance and bromance and all sorts of odd feelings, some good and some _not so_. It will lead, and I promise, to happy endings, and it will be AU.

In this one, Sherlock takes John home to the Sodding Fambly, once more, post the second Christmas hols since he's been returned. It is more successful a visit than even _the previous time_. That's a bit super, yes? (Edited & updated version)

* * *

Mummy has always impressed upon Sherlock that 'six impossible things before breakfast, Sherly!' were very much doable—and oft' expected of him. As a sort of mental exercise—and a diversion from truly going mental, given where he and John both are, currently—Sherlock decides to have a bit of a stab at it this especial morn.

"Tea," he says, handing it across the table if it weren't obvious enough that it's a bloody cuppa. "Darjeeling."

"Ta," John replies cautiously. He sips it. He doesn't grimace straight after and there's absolutely no reason he should.

"Toast?" Sherlock points out the morning's offering up of mildly-singed-carbs-in-a-rectangular-form, wagging a pinkie finger in the direction of the rack where they reside. Also dead stone obvious to anyone with functioning sight, but he feels he should make the effort.

The rack was some ancient relative's once, long ago. Mummy therefore prizes it and insists upon employing its hoary glory even though the toast—which naturally enough ought be served warmish to steaming hot—goes stone cold in the mangle of heavily silver-plate metal in a matter of mere moments. Sherlock has often suggested using the spare tea cozy to insulate the device (and the toast!) against draughts, but each time he suggests it Mummy makes this odd expression at him and flat out refuses. The only reason Sherlock has not deleted the entire existence of the horrid rack sooner is because it is where the toast is generally to be located when one is _At Home_.

'At Home', for Sherlock (and now for his John), is _An Experience_, variously characterized as 'gruelling', 'tedious' and 'frightfully soothing, the bloody countryside, John; you'll soon settle down and relax, right? You did display signs of enjoyment the last time you visited; I recall it all very well. So _please_?' That last descriptor being courtesy Sherlock himself in a state, literally have been driven to the bitter end of his wits just prior to Christmas by a lackadaisical Watson.

It had worked somewhat well that last time, shoving John at Sussex and Sussex at John; there's no reason to believe it won't this.

"Uh-huh," John nods, fairly genially considering the early hour. Subdued, though. Yet he makes no move towards the pre-offered toast; Sherlock frowns. It is no longer Christmas and yet? Here they all are again, twelve months on since Mary. (Sherlock cannot bear to even entertain the thought of The Child because he doesn't _do_ children and god! It's _un_thinkable, even for him. Really it is.)

"Mycroft made the toast, not I, John," Sherlock is quick to mention. _Toast, John; you're fond of it, right? Well, there it is. Have some!_ He thinks at John very loudly indeed. He's not sure why it is but he feels vaguely guilty over the way John's not reaching out instantly and filching a piece. "It's whole grain. Filthily healthy for a body, I'm informed. Keeps those pipes clean, yeah? Er… Jam, John? There's plenty to select from: gooseberry, strawberry, thick and thin-cut marmalades—ginger _and_ citrus blends, mind you; Mummy's a bit of a fanatic when it comes to her preserves. Raspberry, blackber—"

"Um," John shakes his head slightly, stopping Sherlock from continuing to tick off the entire list of the jars littering the sideboard. He smiles slightly at Sherlock's eager eyes and flapping hands but it's still a positive 'no' to either offer of solid sustenance. Stymied, Sherlock purses his lips in return, verging on a outright scowl when John narrows his eyes in some sort of telepathic warning over pressing him further on the eating front and adds, apparently just to confirm what the detective's already surmised. "No. No, thanks."

"Ah. _John_—"

The latent bustle in the kitchen proper swells momentarily, the noisy bickering between his mother and Mycroft spilling out and over into the breakfast room. It forestalls Sherlock's impending scold over John's at times dreadfully poor dietary habits and impels him instead to shout out loudly in the direction of the passageway "Three to five minutes, Mycroft, you great whomping arse, dependent upon the freshness of the egg; I presume they are local? Of course they are local; delivered this morning, presumably Sussex—oh! And Mummy? Mummy! John prefers two, poached just on four! Use Mycroft's wristwatch; it's calibrated precisely."

"Thank you, darling!" Mummy sings out, right over the muffled sound of Mycroft's low growly roar of frustration. Likely Mummy has ordered Mycroft to hand the excessively dear timepiece over. "Noted!"

"You just up and shut it, Mycroft!" Sherlock increases his volume by several degrees, just to ensure his brother hears him. "Four minutes does indeed make a difference!" Sherlock wouldn't want 'Myc' to miss a word, as he's had these small troubling suspicions for some time now and here's presenting the perfect opportunity to air them aloud—_and_ before Mummy. "You don't live with him, do you? You're not his keeper! And I hardly think your minions have access to the videos of John cooking his eggs every morning! And, should they do, I shall have to complain to the Queen directly for misuse of government funds! Bugger off!"

"Oi." This all has John jolting slightly in his chair. He angles up a brow at a slightly pink-cheeked and fretful Sherlock and lowers his cup to the exact level of his rumpled collar. He's shaved but sloppily; Sherlock can't say he minds it. "Er. Look, I'm not so sure I even want an—"

"Yes, you do. You absolutely do," Sherlock interrupts and takes the opportunity to snatch John's cup from his hand whilst he's at it. "Two, in fact. You should eat two. I ordered two, you shall consume two."

"Eh? Wait, no, Sherlock! I really don't want them."

"Bosh. Poppycock. Transport, John." Sherlock tops up the tea in John's cup even as he's on to enquiring politely of his flatmate "More tea? Right, then, here you go, John." One half a lump and the merest trickle of milk, a deft spin round the bottom with a convenient teaspoon, and John is back in possession of his refreshed cuppa, all within the twenty seconds, signed, sealed and delivered.

"Oop!" John mumbles and yet doesn't fumble the slightly overfull cup. "Jeez! Why is it you _always_—"

"Ah, yes, John. You're very welcome. Don't even mention it."

Steady hands it is, and for that small favour Sherlock's incredibly chuffed; it's only taken the ten months to make it so. He smiles to himself, eyelids demurely lowered, pleased as punch overall with how his morning's progressing despite the fact he and John are ensconced At Home. Honestly, it's all been rather masterfully accomplished, this victualling and watering (or should it properly be more the 'tea-ing'? because at least the 'tea-ing') of John Watson. Not to mention Sherlock's form of therapy. Ah, erm….make that the 'therapies'.

The detective's been and studied up on those, a bit. Not that Sherlock expects praise for any of it and especially not the tea business. John generally greets Sherlock's efforts at domesticity by pulling the oddest of faces at him, a habit he shares with Mummy, apparently. Sometimes John has even shouted and raged.

Sherlock thoughtfully seizes the opportunity to forestall any ranting by John over the 'Quick-Turn Tea' episode by turning the other cheek, quite literally, and staring innocently out the window at the back garden, dulled to utter inanity by a lingering winter. He doesn't so much as covertly glance over at a mildly miffed tablemate when the good doctor finally and reluctantly raises his own cup upwards to drink.

John, in a very non-obliging manner, sips gratefully enough but offers absolutely not a single, solitary word regarding Sherlock's show of prowess with the tea pot. Sherlock occupies himself instead with a rapid calculation, ruefully letting go his minor urge to point out his five-seconds-elapsed- time improvement over the most recent such marker (Thursday, last) just on the odd chance John really has missed it by accident, this lovely golden opportunity to offer up his flatmate-cum-keeper some well-deserved praise. Sherlock does boast some little practise as a faux member of certain restaurants and hotels hospitality staff; it's not as though he's a rank beginner!

John doesn't, _and _doesn't, and then infuriatingly continues to _not do_. Sherlock blinks at the merest trace of a cobwebby corner of the window frame that Mummy's helper-in-from-the-village has apparently missed when she lasted dusted. Absurdly he's bothered by it, but then again John's acting a little wobbly this morning.

"You know?" He's not given to small talk, but he will make the effort, now and again. "John. John, I was thinking?"

It is, perhaps, just perhaps , Sherlock realizes, somewhat petty of him, expecting much notice for all his many exertions. John often still barely notices he's actually in this temporal world of the living. Then again, he is more and more often doing so…and that's. That's good.

Fucking amazing, really. Twelve months ago Sherlock had been routinely sedating his flatmate just to keep him from the scalpels and the pills. Six months ago John was very definitely floundering. Three months past John was regularly insomniac and too often exhausted because of it. Still, as of this moment there's perhaps three minutes twenty to get through until Mummy arrives and presents John with his egg. His two eggs, definitely, as Sherlock knows for certain Mycroft had heard him and slipped the second one in the pot whether Mummy remembered to or not. That rat bastard.

"I thought perhaps we'd go out on tramp today, you and I," Sherlock carries on grandly, in the manner of an adult making an announcement to a terribly twee tot as to the much anticipated arrival of a great treat, such as…such as…ah? An ice lolly? "A decent walk, John." His gaze stays relentlessly fixed upon the exceptionally boring view of Mummy's dead border. He can practically hear John's expressions so there's no need to actually look at them. That might only prove discouraging. "You could use the exercise."

"Well!" John makes that snuffly noise he emits sometimes; Sherlock's still interpreting the various meanings. "Really, now."

"Yes, really. Don't be thick." Sherlock is also dead certain there do indeed exist videotape records of his flatmate cooking up his breakfast of a morning, if not recently taken then the ones from some years back. There also exist tapes of Sherlock Holmes cooking up his flatmate's brekkers as of a morning and those are very much more recent. Likely these are all kept in top-secret vaults below the Underground, stored away securely in the rare event Mycroft should ever require to prove some even more meticulously petty point to Sherlock; say, John's caloric intact overall since the time Sherlock took over the provisioning of 221B as compared to prior days? Say? Perhaps Sherlock's egregious attempts to fiddle with Mrs Hudson's Belgian waffle iron? Whatever; the sum result is likely humiliating to the extreme and indubitably Mycroft has poked his nose into it in an excess of bad taste. Which is not an inconceivable hypotheses at all, given his nosy sibling's propensity to pry into every aspect of his and John's privacy. "You appetite lately is pathetic. One would think you were slimming."

Or Mycroft's obsession with food.

Abruptly Sherlock huffs at the whole of it—the fuss of eating, the further fuss of enticing John into eating, the eggs themselves, the tea, the overabundance of jam! The very bothersome humdrumness, even unto the malingering assurity of videos that might yet one day appear upon some version of that bloody YouTube-thingy. He flaps a hand as well at the general state of his parent's cottage, inhabited as it is this Bank Holiday weekend by a whole panoply of infuriating Holmes's, one in particular!

"John? If I don't procure myself a least a short break from both this house and my bloody brother, I'll run mad."

Sherlock quite carefully does _not _jest nor joke about that he'll be the one up out, off to murder someone (probably Myc; yes, definitely _Myc_), if John dares not acquiesce with Sherlock's stated wishes and instead attempts to keep him to the interior of the cottage on this dull, dull winter's day, perhaps out of mistaken courtesy to the Parents. No, no, no! _Subjected _to the Parents!

Even so, his not-so-careless words fall into the little pool of silence that quickly settles to surround them, punctuated only barely by the occasional smack of John's lips.

John quietly and quickly swallows down the last of his tea, throat bobbing.

Almost without his conscious volition Sherlock's eyes dart sideways to steal a look. Not just the intriguing line of that throat but another specific part of John as the object: his mouth. Lovely!

Sherlock particularly likes the shape of John's lips, very much so. He admires the way they fold up at times, going tight at the corners. He is excessively fond of the manner in which John twitches them when a smile or even a grin or a laugh is in the offing. In fact, he's often taken the time out of his busy schedule to observe them, though not as closely as he might like. Or not yet, at least. He also is a bit more healthily fascinated by the equally healthy pink of John's tongue and the well-kempt teeth and even the slightly pugnacious set of John's chin and jawbone.

"Consider. The village is dull, the shops are crowded, the market is frankly hideous this time of year and teeming with monumentally boring inhabitants and likely out-of-sell-by produce, imported from foreign climes and passed off as home-grown; I thought a purposeful wander through the neighboring copse at first and then up the one hill of which we can legitimately boast? Oh! There's foxes, down below; it's denning time, possibly…probably."

"Hrhm."

"Is that a yes, then? Good, good!" Speaking to pugnacious jaw lines, Sherlock has observed that John is remarkably muted this morning? Of course, that may be as he's spent the previous night sleeping in Sherlock's old bedroom, in Sherlock's childhood bed, _with_ Sherlock.

"Boys!" Mummy has them both jumping, bursting through the swing door with the vigour of a woman half her age. "Breakfast!"

There's nothing out-of-the-norm with the 'with Sherlock' in the as to the 'sleeping' bit, Sherlock determines, peering at John and leaning familiarly across the table to do so. Yet? Mummy has departed already, not standing about to scold them into eating. Is it possible John really is, really positively is?

"I say!" John says sharply, sticking a hand out and grasping at Sherlock's dressing gown sleeve. "Mind your eggs, dolt!"

"Oh…sorry," Sherlock murmurs, abstracted by this new train of thought. It's disturbing enough. Which is instantly overlaid by another: has he actually failed in his singular objective of the morn? For he only has five accounted for, should someone stick him with it and press the point. But, even more to the point—is—John?

"John?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you angry? With me?"

The idea is quite enough to cast Sherlock's spirits straight into the dumps, even so far as to killing his fleeting sense of anticipation over possibly observing their local fox population, sure to be breeding this time of year. Sherlock quite likes the foxes, actually, and John does spend an inordinate amount of time looking at baby animals on his laptop. Having fox pups and a bracing walk will no doubt provide John a world of good!

Hmm. Sherlock frowns at John, who is frowning in return at him. Are the fox pups valid, if he cannot verify in advance? Oh, how he wishes this part of Sussex boasted of better mobile service!

"Of course—" John snaps at Sherlock. Or starts to, at least.

"And why would he be, dear brother?" Mycroft strolls through the access door, looming over the table in a twinkling. "John is an easygoing sort, isn't he? Fond of his tea, his armchair, his jumpers. Yes." Sherlock's excessively irritating elder sibling hefts his cup in a mocking sort of toast to the flatmates—third one this morning and thus one beyond his allowable morning caffeine-intake limit, Sherlock notes; Mycroft must be beyond bored, then, and venturing well into the whispery edginess of tedium. He rests a sanguine eye upon Sherlock's doctor. "No, no. He's comfortable here. _At Home_ with the Holmes's, as it were."

"Pard—? _What_? And _who_ asked you, Mycroft?"

"No, brother mine. This is purely voluntary. Observe? John's a man who enjoys the occasional spot of family time, Sherlock—his sister's uneven company aside, of course." Mycroft, that great git, spares a gleam of actual apology towards an open-mouthed John, who has craned his neck around and is staring up at him. "He was pleased to be invited at all, happier still to be brought along promptly this weekend: he relishes the offered chance to escape the dullness of a London winter and the confines of your atrocious tip of a flat. Mummy is handling the majority of the cooking so that further delights him, as he has no need worry over what monstrous culinary menaces you might require he tuck into."

"Oooh!" Sherlock snarls. "You go too far!"

"Further, John is currently rather delighted by the overt signs Mummy and Papa both are just as apt as he is at aping the methods and habits of those horrible 'normal people'. Which is likely very comforting for his nerves, especially after such a prolonged exposure to _you_. What's there not to like? Really. You worry far too much, little brother. Eat up your egg; it'll improve your mood to no end. And you'll need energy for that walk you're proposing."

"Oh! Oh, _fantastic_! Bloody-_fucking-_fantastic!" Overjoyed, Sherlock springs up from his seat like a Jack-in-the-Box with an overly coiled spring. He catches the chair from tipping over and clattering to the floor only at the very last split-second. "Brilliant! I did manage it, I did!"

"Manage what, Sherlock?" John swivels his gaze to Sherlock and tilts that intriguing chin at him. He licks his lips, anticipatory. "What _have_ you done _now_?"

"Six, six—all six!" Sherlock exclaims, hopping mostly in place and ignoring the habitual intonation he's become so accustomed to over the years. John scolds out of fond habit; it's really a compliment more than anything else. Also, 'in place' out of deference to Mummy's antique sideboard and the even more precious family china cabinet. He does restrain himself to only the once or twice or thrice, though; Mummy can be a horrid scold, worse than John and Mycroft combined on a bad day. That aside? "And all before breakfast, John! I win—I _so _very much win! I am _made_ of the bloody win!"

"Ah…okay?" John replies calmly. He has that Other Look cast upon him, the one Sherlock really rather likes and oft aims for. "Good on you, mate. But—what? _What _did you win, exactly?" Mycroft, the arse, cracks a grin. "Explain, maybe? What 'six' are these? You haven't a case on; we'd never have left London for a getaway weekend if you did. Is it a mind puzzle or one of your experiment for the S.o.D site? Or something else I _should_ probably know about?" The Look Sherlock likes fades away, replaced abruptly by that other one, the odd one John and Mummy both employ. "…And so seldom do."

"Tea," Sherlock ripostes gleefully, ably ignoring John's sighing huff. "_Jam_. That's two—John! John, don't you see? Now, toast doesn't count; it wasn't my toast, so _not_ three, but I did indicate its availability to you, so perhaps as a half point if one's reckoning, but that's really still cheating because Mycroft, so no. I can't really count toast. However! There's _tea again_, so that's an honest number three, all aboveboard; then the next was—four!"

"What in the blazes?" John asks, opening his eyes very wide at Sherlock. "All right, Sherlock, I admit. You have me completely lost now. What're you going on about?"

"Four was the—"

"Oh, it's the Six Things, John," Mycroft butts in to explain."Before breakfast. Oddly that's still stuck in my brother's Mind Palace. I blame Mummy, really. Papa always kept to the pure sciences when it came to casual reading materials."

"What? You mean—you mean like..like _Alice_? _Alice in Wonderland_? Sherlock!"

"As I was saying, John, _four_," Sherlock raises his voice, as it's rude to be interrupted mid-flow, even by a wide-eyed John Watson, "should rightfully have been the proper poaching of the eggs and that there ought to be two of them made ready for you, as I informed Mummy. Via the instructions if not by actual deed, John. It was intent to please, but 'intent'…ah, well! You know that old saw, you've told me it to me far too many times, haven't you? Bah!" He throws his hands up. Thankfully he already laid down his tea cup and saucer a moment before. "Excepting _not_, bugger it all—"

"No, Sherlock," Mycroft butts in. "That _was _cheating."

"I know that! If you would just stop the spying, Mycroft, but—but, what_ever_." Sherlock scowls blackly, all his dancing-in-place calmed to a despicable _nil_. "Right! In any case, number four then logically has to be the offer of a walk about, John. Incidentally foxes as well but there's no guarantee of that, especially not the pups; the weather's been a bit wonky—they might be mating later due to it. Right, then. Just the offer of the exercise itself is pertinent. Agreed? Then five. Oh, I was so much bollixed by five."

"Good god. Sherlock! You're actually serious? This is what you were spending your time on this morning?" John blinks at Sherlock, astounded. Sherlock blinks back in return, spirits rising at John's growing half-grin. As 'astounded' is leagues improved over 'angry', 'sullen', 'depressed' or 'knackered' Sherlock ultimately regains his spirits completely. "Fuck, but I'm flattered—er, really, I am. Thank you."

"Of course you are, John; you should be." Sherlock takes that as his proper due, naturally, and valiantly ignores his brother's tiny snicker, serving John a half-bow instead. "Yes, moving on, the five was the baby foxes; you know how you love baby creatures. Wet as anything of you but endearing; I 've no idea why. But then, you see my issue? **Six**—where_ is_ lucky number six? What_ is_ six, for that matter? With the exclusion of eggs and toast, there was only the time for the five of them, as the poaching directions took up a ridiculous amount of—"

"Of time. Wasted insulting me, Sherlock. Not wise, brother mine." Mycroft has the gall to tut at Sherlock but his eyes gleam in a very nastily familiar manner. "Not wise a'tall."

"Shut it, Myc. Myc, Myc, Myc," the detective repeats childishly. "You bore me, you and your idiotic moniker."

"Oooh! Pot, kettle, Sherlock!"

"Meh!" A glare of high firepower is briefly exchanged over top the good doctor's head. "Although," Sherlock relents regretfully, "I may be forced to forgive you, _Myc_, since you recalled to mind the real Number One. The _proper_ one. Which bumps every other one up and gives me my six."

"Oh," Mycroft smiles, all teeth and very Cheshire. "That's true. I did, didn't I?" It's a bit unnerving, even for Sherlock. No, he's not deleted _Alice_ though sometimes he wishes he had. "My pleasure, dear brother. Don't think I won't count that as a favour."

"Which was _what_, Sherlock?" John stands, face registering 'perplexed' and blithely ignoring his eggs. They've gone cold as the toast but no matter. Sherlock wasn't particularly hungry anyway and they can still catch a decent meal at the café in the village, as he is now absolutely positive he will run amuck if not shed of his elder brother very, very soon. Nay, soonest!

Really. He'd rather gaze up on an interested and intrigued John than a gloating elder brother any day.

"Hmm? Oh, 'six' is the _At Home_, John. Bringing you along because you belong here, of course. Certainly as much as I do. As Mycroft pointed out, you like it here. With the Parents, with us. This cottage, Sussex in general. It's _nice_, for your value of nice. And that part of the whole was accomplished well before breakfast. I mean, technically I did it yesterday evening, via train and taxi and so forth, but still the letter of the law, John? Thus I did indeed pass and even exceed all expectations of providing you your necessary comfort and tending your needs, plebian as they are at times, and then even went well above that, positing the baby foxes. But, look, may we crack on now? Those eggs appall me just by existing. The toast is chilled. Ew!"

_Curious_, Sherlock thinks. "Oof!" he says. John Watson can still move quite quickly when he's motivated.

It seems he's motivated to occupy the same space Sherlock is occupying.

"Ah!" exclaims his older brother, no doubt flinching. "Well, really! I never!"

"No?" John Watson says in his lovely smiling-sort-of-voice. "Well,_ I_ have. Excuse you, yeah?"

Never in Sherlock's entire life would he have deduced that the first time his lips might meet up with John's lips would occur smack dab in the middle of the Parent's breakfast room, At Home, and then directly under the aghast and likely beady eyes of his own big brother. Who mumbles some nonsense about 'goldfish' and then—and then…oh, as if it even maters what Mycroft is doing.

What's far more critical is what John's doing to Sherlock. To Sherlock's lips. With his own lips.

But by the time he's arrived at that thought mostly Sherlock simply ceases _the thinking of things_. He is rather differently preoccupied presently. Lips, yes. And some tongue. Two tongues, tangling and teasing.

It's very…very…_very_ good.

Still, the detective cannot ever seem to stop himself observing. Vaguely he notices what sounds suspiciously like Mummy, hissing fiercely at Mycroft and from approximately six feet off to the right, ergo from the kitchen door, then. She's likely beckoning, too. "Come away, Myc, at once. Leave the boys be. Didn't I tell you not a second more than two minutes in there?"

"Mummy!"

"And didn't your father say to limit your interference to not more than three valid points? Irt's not though either of them is lacking."

"Absolutely necessary, Mummy, I assure you—"

"Hush! Bit much, son. Right, then, come away now. Off with you to market. I need more veg for our supper. Your father's gone and appropriated all the salad for an experiment in mould and he's stuffed it in the compost for observation . Chip, chip, please."

"Oh, Mummy."

"Shh! Shoo, shoo!"

Despite the irritation engendered by Mycroft's fading whinging Sherlock stays on task, very much so. He observes John's lips are soft. That they are chapped, that they taste of tea and that John has a very hard-handed grip upon the lapels of Sherlock's gaping wrapper. John is delightfully warm when pressed up against Sherlock (the 'delightful' is subjective, but still it's the plain unvarnished truth since Sherlock is the 'subject' in question) and he smells vaguely of Sherlock's childhood bedding. All of it comforting in the extreme and not tedious.

He observes the sensations all at once blooming forth and then actively taking up residence inside his chest cavity and his lower abdomen and even down to his tingling fingertips resemble the same consistency of champagne bubbles—or at least provide generously the same effect to the bloodstream.

"You?" Sherlock manages to rustle up real words when they at last stagger apart, both panting, both a bit soggy about the seams. "You—you're _not_ going to regret thi—"

"No."

_Well, all right then_, Sherlock thinks. Home might very well be where the heart's found, at long last. Although that's rather horribly sentimental a concept. Abominable!

"Ew! Snog me again, please," he demands, leaning down for a better angle of access. "Brain's gone all soggy, help me ignore it?"

"Of course it has," John agrees calmly, smiling. "Come here."

**Fin **


End file.
